


Tattoo

by addict_with_a_pen



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Completed, Crowley's Tattoo (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), beach, gomens, good omens - Freeform, good omens fanfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-08-14 01:02:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addict_with_a_pen/pseuds/addict_with_a_pen
Summary: Requested by anon on tumblr!





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> this has proven quite different from what i'm used to writing, it's been a lovely challenge coming up with a story for this! thank you so much!

It had been a normal day at their private beach in the South Downs for two certain ethereal lovers. Aziraphale had been reclining in a beach chair with a book for the most part, under an umbrella since his skin was delicate and burned rather easily. Meanwhile Crowley had been out in the waves, breaking in a new surfboard he had gotten, decorated with a snarling Basilisk snake. (He was a fan of the Harry Potter books, which made up about half of all the books he’d ever read)

After a few amusing hours of glancing up from his reading every now and then to see Crowley either roaring triumphantly as he rode high on a wave, long ginger hair whipping in the wind, or face-planting into the water with his lanky legs stuck up in the air, Aziraphale decided to set down his book, marking the page carefully, and wade out to meet the demon in the water.

“Lovely, my dear!” he called, making a face as he trod upon some seaweed. He lifted his foot out of the water to see a hairy brown mass that had attached itself round his ankle. He shook it aggressively, trying to dislodge it, and instead lost his balance and plopped down into the water, landing unceremoniously on his arse.

_Last time I go in the water, then_, he thought to himself as he plucked the seaweed off his foot and flung it angrily away.

He heard Crowley laugh, and blushed a bit, although it was indistinguishable from the flush already upon his face from the sting of the saltwater.

"Alright, there, angel?" the demon said, offering the hand that did not have his surfboard tucked under it.

"Yes, fine," replied Aziraphale, taking it and feeling Crowley pull him up.

He tried not to stare as Crowley ran a hand through his hair, slicking it back, and grinned almost blindingly.

"'S a wonderful day out, innit?" said Crowley, squinting at Aziraphale through the bright sunlight. "Say, angel, why don't you give this a shot?"

Aziraphale's eyes widened in shock at the very notion. "M-me, my dear boy? Don't be ridiculous," he said, simply.

"Awww, cmon, Azi," said Crowley doggedly, knowing that it annoyed Aziraphale when he called him that, but it served the demon’s purpose anyway in this case. 

"Oh, alright," Aziraphale snapped wretchedly. Crowley beamed even brighter in victory, and handed the angel the surfboard. "Now what you do, is you take the board, and get on it, lying on your stomach," said Crowley.

Aziraphale did as he was told.

"I'm going to guide you out," Crowley continued, taking the nose of the board and pulling it along behind him. Aziraphale noticed something peaking over the edge of his swimming trunks.

"Crowley," said Aziraphale suspiciously, "what is that?"

The demon turned around. "What's what?" he said.

"Is that another tattoo on your lower back?"

Crowley froze. "Er, what?"

Aziraphale slipped off the board, standing in the waist-deep water, and approached Crowley, who backed away. 

"Nuh, I dunno what you're talking about, I--erm,"

He trailed off as Aziraphale gave him a stern look.

Crowley sighed. "Yeah, fine, it's another tattoo."

Aziraphale moved closer to him, and this time Crowley let him. "Show me," he said softly.

The demon turned, tentatively, and let the angel see it.

It was an elegantly inked rendition of an old-fashioned ammunition belt.

“Crowley? Why that?” he asked, as the demon turned back around. 

Crowley blushed, and began to stammer out half-formed thoughts. “I thought it looked cool, yknow, badass… Demons should look menacing, right? I was drunk, and I was watching a Clint Eastwood movie, and I thought to myself, ‘hey, you know what I should do?’...”

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, avoiding Aziraphale’s gaze.

The angel blinked, drumming his exquisitely manicured fingers that were slowly getting ruined by the saltwater on Crowley’s surfboard. 

Crowley began to toy with with his hair, wrapping it around his finger. It was a nervous habit that he had had since Eden, since _ before _Eden. 

It was one of the reasons he didn’t like to keep his hair short for very long. 

Aziraphale reached out to take the demon’s hand away from his hair, holding it reassuringly in his own. The cold water around them seemed to grow a few degrees warmer. Wordlessly, the angel led Crowley back towards shore, making a gesture towards the surfboard to make it glide along beside them as if dragged by a string. 

“Crowley, I know you. You don’t do anything without a purpose, even when you’re drunk,” began Aziraphale.

Crowley, who had tugged his hand out of Aziraphale’s and thrown himself down on a towel laid out beside the chair and umbrella upon reaching the shore, squirmed uncomfortably and began to twist at his hair again. “Angel, I really don’t want to talk about it.” 

Aziraphale frowned. “Alright, dear. I respect that,” he sighed, pulling his chair over a little bit so that he could play with Crowley’s hair, an activity which he knew put the demon at ease while simultaneously letting him know that he cared for him. 

What Aziraphale said was true. If a certain thing made Crowley so uncomfortable that he would opt not to share whatever relevant information he was being questioned about, Aziraphale knew it was best to leave him alone. The demon would volunteer the information when he felt comfortable with it, and to press him further would only result in his shutting down completely.

As he worked his fingers through Crowley’s knotted, salt-soaked hair, he found his eyes drawn to the second tattoo adorning his demon. A story for another time, perhaps.


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trying to keep this as historically accurate as I can, however history isn’t one of my strong suits, so if i make any mistakes, feel free to let me know!

The year is 1882. 

Crowley was nursing something strong in a bar in Vienna, when he heard two slightly slurred American accents discussing loudly. 

“Pah! Hang your chemistry, hang your electricity! If you want to make a pile of money,  invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others' throats with greater facility,” urged the first voice, heartily.

The second voice, sounding slightly more refined, murmured something.

Later that night, Crowley, still drunk, followed the refined American to his house of stay, and whispered into his ear the idea for the first Maxim machine gun, an invention which would revolutionize warfare and pave the path for modern machine guns. 

He figured that with Aziraphale’s being gone since 1862 after the spat with the holy water, he might as well get some demoning done.

A few decades later, Crowley would come to regret this.

The year is now 1908. Crowley had forgotten that night in Vienna. He was currently sulking on a street corner in Mayfair, London, trying to decide whether or not to visit Aziraphale’s bookshop in Soho (Mr A. Fell, Purveyor of Books to the Gentry, est 1800), when a little boy, probably about seven or eight, ran up to him.

“‘Scuze me, mistah!” said the child, tugging at Crowley’s dusty black tailcoat. The demon stared down, startled. 

“Have you seen m’ mummy?” asked the boy, looking up at Crowley expectantly. 

“I—no, sorry,” managed Crowley. The boy looked disappointed, and tensed as if to take off again. Crowley quickly crouched down on one knee so as to appear less intimidating, and said, “Hold on there, kid. What’s your name?”

“Thomas, but you can call me Tommy if you like,” said the little boy. He regarded Crowley with growing interest. “Wot’s your funny glasses for?”

“Tommy, nice to meet you. My name is Crowley. I have, er, special eyes, y’see,” Crowley said elusively, holding out his hand for the boy to shake.

“Can I see them?” asked Thomas, taking the demon’s hand with a surprisingly firm grip. 

He considered. He didn’t think it was a good idea at all.

“Oh, alright, I suppose,” he said, surprising himself. He was taking a liking to this little human child. “But you’ve got to promise not to run away, okay?”

The boy nodded vigorously, his face the picture of curiosity.

Crowley glanced around to make sure there was no one in sight, then gingerly removed his glasses.

Slitted pupils dilated slightly in the sun, then fixed themselves upon the little boy.

Thomas gasped, but did not run.

“Them’s  _ snake eyes!”  _ he said breathlessly.

Crowley winked, then put his glasses back on. 

“They’re  _ pretty!”  _ exclaimed Thomas, trying to get another peek past the dark sunglasses.

Crowley, taken aback, was lost for words for a moment. Then he asked the boy where he thought his parents were.

“I dunno,” said the boy, sobering. “Me dad’s dead, see. He died when I was two, he got very sick, Mum says, and then he died.” Thomas looked at the ground, scuffing his shoes against the curb. He was too young to have remembered any more than snippets of his father, if at all. 

Crowley felt strangely protective of this little child. He swallowed back a spike of rage at whatever demon had invented childrens’ parents dying. He would help him find his mother, and he would make sure they were well off enough that the mother wouldn’t have to work several jobs, as he got the feeling she might. The boy looked poor, there were smudges of black across his face and all over his dirty, battered clothing. 

He worked in the mines, realized Crowley, and so did his father, most likely. The “getting sick” was probably black lung disease. 

“What about your mummy, then?” asked Crowley gently. 

Thomas shrugged. “We was buyin’ shoes for my lil sister, an’ I sawr this really cool bug on a shelf, so I wen’ over to look at it, an’ then I turned around an’ she was gone.” 

He finished this story with a little cough that sounded like it concealed a whimper. Thomas looked up at Crowley. “Will you help me?”

The demon took the boy’s hand. “Of course,” he said, straightening up. “Which way did you come from?”

Thomas tugged Crowley’s hand in a certain direction, and led him down the street to the store he’d come from. 

Finding humans was easy enough for Crowley. He could sense some emotions, as well as see people’s auras. 

There was a sense of urgency and distress coming from near the store. Crowley had known that Thomas’s mother couldn’t be far, and he had been correct in his assumption. 

They turned the corner of the street on which the store was situated, and they saw a woman holding a little girl, maybe three or four, looking quite frantic. 

“Mum!” cried Thomas, his hand slipping from Crowley’s as he ran to the woman. 

She received him, breathing a huge sigh of relief. Her eyes fell upon Crowley standing a little ways away, and he saw the gratitude in them. She whispered something in the boy’s ear, then Thomas ran back to him. “Thanks, Mistah Crowley!” he said happily. His mother watched him wearily. 

Crowley bent down again, smiling. “No problem, kid.”

Then Thomas blushed, putting his hands behind his back. “Can I see your eyes again?” he asked. 

Crowley looked up at the mother, moved his head so that his face was blocked by the boy’s body, and removed his sunglasses. 

“Whoooa,” said the little boy, awed. “How come you got them?”

Crowley shrugged. “Souvenir,” he said simply, a little  _ too  _ simply. 

Thomas sensed a story, but first he needed more information. He cocked his head. “Wossat?”

The demon looked at the sunglasses in his hands. “Well, when you go somewhere or do something, you can get something to take home with you to remind you of it. Like this,” he said, putting the sunglasses on the boy. “It’s a souvenir of our little adventure.”

Thomas giggled. The glasses were a little too big for his face, but he didn’t care. 

His mother called to him.“Tommy, come on, love!” The little girl in her arms squealed. 

Crowley gave the boy a grin, and tousled his hair. “Go on,” he said, pulling another pair of sunglasses out of his coat and putting them on. 

Thomas returned the smile, and ran back to his mother. 

As the family set off, Crowley arranged for the mother’s distant uncle, who had conveniently just passed, to leave a substantial amount of money to the woman and her children, which would sustain them for the rest of their lives. 


	3. Part Three

The year is now 1916.

Crowley stalked across the battlefield, trying not to look at the carnage around him. Shreds of tattered uniform littered the place, sometimes attached to other shreds of tattered soldier. A few still breathed quietly and shallowly, awaiting their time with dull eyes and hands clenched in pain.

Crowley had been sent to the battlefield to do a fatality report for his superiors. They felt he deserved to see the “glorious” results of his supposed achievement, considering he’d told them that he’d started the first World War.

He coughed as he walked past a smoking crater where a grenade had exploded, trying not to gag as he caught a whiff of the rotten stench wafting from a trench not far away. Riding beside the smell of some poor bloke’s innards turned outards was another scent. 

Dusty. Ancient. And familiar.

A tall figure clothed in billowing black robes with wings made of night folded elegantly in on themselves extending from their back was bending over the trench. 

Crowley recognized him.

He opened his mouth to say something like “Fancy meeting you here,” then thought better of it. 

As the demon approached the trench, Death knelt down beside a fallen soldier’s body. The soldier’s chest rose and fell weakly, and his eyes were widened with fear and horrible fascination as they fell upon the reaper’s face. 

DO NOT BE AFRAID, whispered Death into the soldier’s mind. Crowley eavesdropped from the background. He squinted to see the dying man, and immediately wished he hadn’t. 

He looked no older than sixteen. There were bullet holes torn through his body, the red blossoms of his life leaving him. 

Crowley heard a woman laughing gleefully in the distance, a laugh like machine gun fire.

Death laid a bony, dead hand upon the man—the  _ boy’s  _ chest, and the soldier sighed, closing his eyes. He did not move again.

Death straightened up, his wings fluttering gently.

I AM SORRY, DEMON, said Death without turning around. His wings opened with blur of stars and black holes, and he was gone. 

Crowley froze in surprise. “What?” he shouted. “What do you mean???” But Death did not reply. 

_ That’s the horsemen for you,  _ he thought sourly. Always acting so high and mighty.

He noticed something clutched in the dead soldier’s hand. Crowley sidled up to the corpse, and gently pried the cold fist open to see what the object was.

It was a pair of black sunglasses.

_Souvenir..._


	4. Part Four

It was a dark and stormy night, but Aziraphale was just fine with that.

It meant that he could sit inside, nestled comfortably on the sofa under a warm, heavy blanket with a good book and a cup of cocoa while listening to the patter of raindrops on the roof and windows.

The fireplace crackled merrily. It wasn’t really necessary to have a fire, seeing as it was summer, but Aziraphale rather liked the ambience the dancing flames provided for his reading, if the constantly flickering light was a bit annoying as it undulated over the pages he was trying to read.

He turned the page of his book, and took a sip of his cocoa. Then he glanced up to check on Crowley, who was curled up on the windowsill like a length of smooth, scaley rope and gazing out into the storm with his fiery amber eyes fixed on something far away.

It had been two weeks since Aziraphale had first noticed the second tattoo.

He stood up, quietly, and walked over to where the snake lay, still staring forlornly out into space. He gently rested a hand on the serpent’s body. Crowley started, rather violently, but offered only a sideways glance at Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye.

Wordlessly, Aziraphale slipped his hands beneath the snake and lifted him up, then carried him back to the sofa. Crowley hissed quietly as Aziraphale placed him gingerly into his warm lap, running a finger along his scales.

He opened his mouth to ask Crowley what was wrong, then thought better of it. He continued to stroke the tensely coiled snake softly.

The serpent lifted his head and blinked up at him, then slithered out of the angel’s lap and unfurled himself. Then Crowley was sitting next to Aziraphale, in human form. His dark sunglasses glinted in the firelight, and Aziraphale noticed that they looked older, and rather battered. This was odd, for Crowley’s sunglasses were usually gleaming and brand new.

Aziraphale waited.

The demon slouched impressively on the sofa, one leg stuck out with the back of his heel resting on the ground, the other shoved beneath the couch with the side of his foot braced against the inside of the couch’s leg.

He stared straight ahead for a few moments, until Aziraphale took his hand gently.

Crowley gripped the angel’s hand, as if he were afraid that he might be swept away if he didn’t find something to hold onto. With his other hand, he took off his sunglasses, and looked helplessly at Aziraphale.

“It’s about that tattoo, isn’t it?” asked Aziraphale softly. Crowley nodded, his eyes wide and filled with more than just tears.

As they began to spill out, Aziraphale reached out and wiped them away. It’s alright, his own kind blue eyes told the demon. It’s okay, I’m here.

Crowley looked away, shaking his head. “‘S my fault,” he spat, through clenched teeth. “It’s my fault.”

Haltingly, with a few broken words, he told Aziraphale the story.

When he had finished, he broke down. “I sat with him for hours,” he cried into Aziraphale’s shoulder, “holding his hand and telling him I was sorry. I brought him back to his mother, and then I took him away from her again…”

He fell silent, and Aziraphale simply held him as he shuddered, weeping for the little boy that had been killed by his demonic activity more than twenty years before.

“I am so sorry, dear,” he whispered into the demon’s hair. “The way I see it is that you brought him back to his mother, and I suppose that you brought him home to his father as well.”

Crowley sniffed. “I don’t know, angel. All I know is that he was innocent, and he had a whole life ahead of him, a life that I took away.”

Aziraphale did not have any words of comfort to offer the distraught Crowley, so he settled for letting him know that he, Aziraphale, did not blame him. Aziraphale could not lessen the demon’s pain, but he could ensure that he did not suffer alone.

And as the storm raged inside and outside, that’s what he did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, thanks for the prompt!! This was super fun to write!! Hope you all enjoyed this! If you have a prompt, you can send an ask to my Tumblr, @skatle-skootle-demon-noodle


End file.
